Verses (Baughan)/Cottage Days
COTTAGE DAYS
I
As small winds at a window
With just as little art,
These gusts of song come calling
At the casement of your heart
Open a tiny chink in it,
And let them in, I pray!
They will but throw a country kiss
To you—and run away.
II
The Study
My room has bare white walls,
—So every sunbeam bright
Runs naked round my room
In unoffended light.
My room has bare white walls
—So, if a daffodil
Is yellow, in my room
She shows quite yellow still.
To give each thought full scope
And every fact its due,
Perhaps the mind of man
Should go uncolour’d too?
III
The Concert
This gusty morning comes with gifts
Of music to my room:
She bids the Wind to ring in the roof,
And in the chimney boom;
She marshals thick at my window-pane
The reedy Raindrop choir;
And calls for wood, to whistle the songs
Of last year to the fire;
And (like a Starling, venturing notes
That to the Thrush belong),
Me too in this singing world she sets
Crooning my little song.
IV
Little Boy and Little Girl
He is an apple-blossom,
All gentle pink and white,
With a bit of blue sky in either eye
To keep it happy and bright;
And she, a wild March violet,
The daughter of wind and rain;
That flings you the bliss of a fragrant kiss—
And snatches it back again!
V
Road-Songs
I
Worry me, Wind, and vex me, Rain,
And use me as you will;
But, should the Sun come out again,
He’ll find me singing still!
2
To walk bare-headed, making songs
And shouting them at the wind,
May bring a headache—but it leaves
A healthy heart behind!
3
Why should these tiny breaths of air
Sigh, as they push along?
Can it be, every one of them
Is burden’d with a song?
VI
The Debt
O ploughboy with the purple eyes
That are so strangely clear,
Did you make all the little songs
I meet so often here?
Is it from out your singing heart
That into mine they come?
And are they flying to my lips
Because they found yours dumb?
And is that why you look at me
Half friendly, half in shame?
(And twice you stopp’d and spoke to me,
And once you ask’d my name.)
Brother! should they indeed be yours,
And this my fancy true—
Hark how they do but leave my lips
To flutter home to you!
VII
The Farewell
At this lock’d door of past delights,
Towards my tranquil singing cell,
My minstrel days, and minstrel nights,
Turning, I pause to say “Farewell!”
O dawns of dewy grey, that broke
On throstles singing in the dark!
O firelit evenings, when what spark
Fell! and what long-dead flame awoke,
What prison’d bird within me sang
Till in my heart the rafters rang!
Silence creeps close; once more the drowsy spell
Falls—falls. O swift and sudden Song, farewell!
Farewell, dear neighbours, ten days past
Unhoped—by your quick courtesies,
Your swift upleaping sympathies,
Bound now unto Regret, how fast!
To all the faithful homely care
That of kind tones and friendly ways
Almost too natural for praise
Serv’d daily such unstinted fare,
And pillow’d every night my head
On pleasantness remembered,
Must now “Do not forget!” be said!
And you, my human blossoms twain,
My little maid, my little man,
Give me that good-bye kiss again,
And me remember—while you can!
My playtime now is over, and Heart’s-rest
Retain no longer may her random guest.
Nature, farewell! O frolic showers
Free winds, and childish-ey’d Spring flowers,
Wide wings of Heaven undefiled,
Fallows, and airy-headed down,
O, all things simple, all things wild,
Farewell! Once more the scarce-trod track,
The chance good-greeting must I lack;
Must to the thick confusion of the town
And to its loneliness, once more go back!
—Yet, as I turn away, and take my load,
To go (not singing now) the dust-deep road,
Surely a little richer is my store
And yet my burden lighter than before?
Music was mine! whereof some piecèd stave,
Tho’ sad miswrit, yet in my hand I have;
A word or two of Nature’s in mine ear,
In my regard her blessed look more clear,
Deep in my breast the love of her more dear!
Ay, and to this delicious gratitude,
This heartier grip on human brotherhood,
If it may be, the surer sight of eyes
A little less averted from life’s whole.
(Quicker to spy out Beauty in disguise,
Keener to note how lowliest lives may be
Nests for the heavenward laverock, Poesy),
The heart more warm, I hope the humbler soul
To such delights farewell I need not say;
These are my cottage-gifts, to take away!